










^>*v 




/ 




A 


PROCEEDINGS 


or THE 


DEMOCRATIC LEGISLA'I^p CONVENTION, 


HELD IN BOSTON, MARCH, 1840. 


Agreeably to previous notification, a Convention of the Democratic Members of the 
Legislature, more than two hundred in number, was held at the Representatives’ Cham¬ 
ber, on Wednesday evening, March 18, 1840. 

The Convention was called to order by IS. C. Allen, Jr., of Northfield, and a com¬ 
mittee, consisting of 



were appointed to nominate officers for the Convention. That committee reported tne 
names of the following gentlemen for officers, viz. 


L. M. PARKER, of the Senate, President. 



Vice-Presidents. 


Messrs. Cushman, of Bernardston, ) 0 . • 

TT V secretaries . 

Hood, ol Lynn, $ 

On motion of Mr. Hoorn <T>of Bristol, 

lf fh * 

Voted , That gentlemen pr_ Ant, not members of the legislature, be invited to take seats 
and act in this Convention. 

On motion of Mr. Tarbell, of Pepperell, 

Voted, That a committee, consisting of Messrs. Hooper and Sumner, of the Senate; Tar¬ 
bell, of Pepperell, Stickney, of Lynn, Winthrop, of Watertown, of the House; and B. F. 
Hallett and C. G. Greene, of Boston, be appointed to report Resolutions and an Address 
for the consideration of this Convention. 

On motion of Mr. Swasey, of Lynnfield, 

Voted , That a Committee of one from each county be appointed to nominate suitable per¬ 
sons, to be recommended to the democracy of Massachusetts, for Governor and Lieutenant- 
Governor; and the following gentlemen were appointed for that committee : — 


Messrs. Swasey, for Essex, 

Josselyn, for Suffolk, 

Russell, for Middlesex, 
Harrington, for Worcester, 
Tilden, for Hampshire, 

Lincoln, for Hampden, 

Ames, for Franklin, 

Cook, for Berkshire, 

Bent, for Norfolk, 

White, for Bristol, 

Russell, for Plymouth, 

Bassett, for Barnstable, 

Allen, for Dukes and Nantucket. 


1 



2 


And the said Committee reported the name of 

MARCUS MORTON, for Governor, 
and 

NATHAN WILLIS, for Lieutenant-Governor ; 

subject to the decision of the Stat^lonvention. 

Mr. Tarbell, of Pepperell, from the committee on that subject, reported an Address 
to the people ; and Mr. Hallett, cu Boston, reported Resolutions, which were unan¬ 
imously accepted, and were recommitted, with instructions to revise and publish them. 


ADDRESS. 

Fellow-Citizens: — The democratic members of the legislature of 
Massachusetts can in no better manner express their views of the princi¬ 
ples on which the government should be administered, than by referring to 
the Address of Governor Morton to the convention of the two houses. 
Having, for fifteen years, filled a high judicial station in a manner which 
has compelled even his opponents to acknowledge “his dignified and 
impartial conduct/’ he brought to h>s new station a mind disciplined by a 
long career of public activity, intimately and profoundly familiar with the 
laws and the constitution. In selecting as their candidate the ornament 
of the bar, the pride of the bench, his supporters have proved that no 
disposition is cherished for rash innovation. In him, official station had 
not weakened the love of equality and of freedom; though he held an 
office of honor and emolument, and for life, he placed himself fearlessly 
in the hands of the people. Appealing to no partisanship, seeking to 
dimmish the amount of executive patronage, and proposing to abolish 
offices which he might have filled with his political friends, he has united 
with the maturity of experience the ardent love of popular institutions. 
In the state paper addressed to the legislature, he has imbodied the 
great principles of liberty and of order, and has proved himself, as a chief 
magistrate, to have a single eye to the rights and happiness of the whole 
commonwealth. 

The principle of democracy is not a selfish one. It sinks personality; 
it recognizes the good of the whole as its object; in obedience to the 
great command which “ establishes the love of God as the first law of 
morality,” it seeks always to conciliate the impulses of benevolence and 
charity with the decrees of justice. There is nothing in it which need 
repel any but the selfish. It offers the only basis on which equal institu¬ 
tions can rest; it is the only one which can unite all the generous senti¬ 
ments of mankind. Other maxims may better serve the purposes of a 
party : the democratic principle is the only one on which institutions can 
rest, that have for their purpose the welfare of the whole community. 
Are there any who desire a hearty union of all true men for the common 
good ? Let them view the matter calmly and earnestly, and they will 
find their hopes of political and social reform can have no other foundation 
than the democratic principle. 

65*7 /££ 

2? H 1-3 



Our political opponents have received the Address of Governor Morton 
with regret and disappointment. They so scoff* at truth, that they hear 
the great principles of democracy as the stratagems of party ; and they 
charge upon the governor, a man famed for his clear sagacity, “ a confu¬ 
sion of ideas.” Indifferent to social progress, they mock the hope of a a 
better establishment, and more perfect development,” of the democratic 
principle; they deride the suggestion “ that the right of suffrage is a 
natural right; ” with a frankness that excrtefc surprise, they avow that the 
natural right of man to self-government is “ abandoned the moment he 
enters into a state of civilized society ; ” and, when the governor spoke a 
word for the right of suffrage, as something that should be superior to the 
accident of taxation, which depends on the fidelity of the assessors,—our 
opponents call the homes of the neglected “ the lowest receptacles of 
vice,” and stigmatize the laborers, who have thus been disfranchized, as 
“ creatures who have just enough of humanity left to be recognized as 
rational beings.” Our political opponents have publicly avowed their 
adhesion to the maxims of aristocracy; and Governor Morton has es¬ 
tablished, in his Address, the principles of democracy. The issue is 
fairly made up before this ancient commonwealth, and the decision is in 
of the people. We join in the issue cheerfully ; and we assert 
very question of difference, the policy marked out by Governor 
more liberal, more fully in harmony with the principles of moral 
and more consistent with the wants of an advancing civilization. 
In a word, we aver that the views of our opponents would lead to the 
selfish dominion of a political faction ; and that the views of Governor 
Morton will lead to a large and liberal policy, embracing every interest, 
and protecting the whole people. 

Notwithstanding our political opponents profess to have heard Governor 
< Morton with “ regret and disappointment,” for the last ten years there 
has not been delivered, from the chief magistrate of this state, an Address 
which has produced so powerful an effect, or of which so many of the 
recommendations have been acted upon, or so important ones adopted. 
Nearly three weeks of the session passed away in listless inactivity, owing 
to the reluctance with which our opponents avowed the result of the 
popular vote. On the first day of the fourth week of the session, the 
governor, in his Address, advocated retrenchment. “ Let us set an 
example ourselves ” — such were his words — “by the promptness with 
which we enter into business, and the despatch with which we conclude it” 
And, in about sixty days, the legislature declared itself ready to adjourn. 
Two years ago, when the whigs had one entire branch, and a vast majority 
in the other, the session continued till the 25th of April, at an expense 
to the commonwealth of $110,756 ; last year, the expense of the session 
amounted to $109,464; but this year, the session terminated on the 
24th of March, and, though the house was unusually full, occasioned an 
expense of but $95,268. Here is the first, palpable retrenchment, of 
$15,000, in a single branch of the public service. 

Again: in the construction of the judiciary, a vast improvement has 
been made. The rights of juries have been vindicated, and a reduction in 
the number of the judges of the Supreme Court has been effected. Here 
is retrenchment for the commonwealth, and also a great improvement in 
the system. Nothing so important had been recommended on this branch 
of the public service. The retrenchment and the reform in the system 
were both suggested, even to their details, by the governor, and were so 


4 


wi s ely entered, that they ctveffseded ik aodmctxi approbation of 
me kg^i-tare. Up 6 tT tbe reftXKaa> 3 skii of osa-deffiocrauc governor, 
tbe wL_g? were conpefied 10 abcUt the very office of dua judge. w hich 
they to2csr]res bd f: receadr e?'iieved. 

Nor doe? oe neddn. etej ia xts ecooccixal p>:at of lienc stop here. 
X« :«ir is there 2. diets spring the crscactoa weal. 1 of three UMOsand 

2 vfsr : ibe eitetse a^d debj of coadocffig si:? at b^r are 
ptiiilly daidM. sad m a laj «U sdredj as j d» of our feliov- 
cstirers can regret. 

la rarard 10 me cn^reccy. Goreracc MrrtoQ has declared it tie doty 
o* theg>nEiBoeei to be usthtith etm : m.dszds a Kz- '&rm cud tat- 
rhmj?c^:>^ »?cr£r? Tbe oxscr:d>n of tee United St- s 

hss cf~ ~ , ziJsidtt'£ !lal saibd: tbe preses: B^i^jcai administration has 
mciizdzi.s a. Tbe ems ek«qpeat of opposes ts did. indeed, in the 

aetiEie of tbe United S'xtes. propose tbe ko:x-: a of an irredeemable 
pEpsr vzsr rji j : bst the trse cSararter of tbe propesitkso was fully 
exposed by tbe «£? reasocaag of Mr. Trifb of New York, and was 
etsriy derated by te (kno rs^r of ibe U r . L: : err opponents mi 
11 trey waL bd tbe nos" ^skhtg iimress writ Mr. Van Berea 

stood troe to tbe eonUaiioc. ziA resisted tbe aitesnpt of tbe rocks to 
costtgI ibe gorerasseat. b? wtsg for kn tbe respect of tbe world, and 
will secure to r.tr a feme ~nkn tbe es^lizeitT of bis r pponents cannot 
taaai. 

- -. — - - • - - • • •. ' ■ • :•—. ' . • :; f - 

tkkzziz tbe desses of ibe hanks.” sa: * do cot den; t he existence oi the 
- ' ' - ' : . * - 5 - ■;. ;t t • • - . ' . ’ . 

and are ere* nxwifling to soke: _o the trie earses of the disease. 

Goi wo r Modoc has isost wisely erresrored to Lit this m^Lloos 
swbiocs cct of tbe vertex of party coc&l. and nldrg an appeal « to 
alz—~ h&s &<szkt to obtain ftc it the cvlss CEvasadert‘..o-a of tbe k^risbture 

fegrs&boo sie few ar>r sistfe. To t_e go -reme:.;: assigns the ©dice 

of refearig tbe inckbiy of tbe contracts made by tbe banks. AM 
apt cer ts yx bscfc sc::e s t-ns, r^st or 10 c r etc ' '*0 

oct flp p wMt : eb gafcksi i jzt work! ssccrticc. sosper.s>*. the demo¬ 
crats governor of Massachusetts repad2at.es e: trek. Here is alreadt an 
Erase* g^rt. : asd tr*e frindpie is asserted. not a oseiess cer ire on 
trie tast .c as -be m>e tor tbe future. in - ke manner oor chief magis¬ 
trate reer r is tbe banks of crew ctit ; they mss* rdy sbr credit, not on 
that cssLCfT?. 3 C ©q i-LiciT tkjty to meet their ecgagerneiit*: and Goremor 
Mont® incudes tbe whose m; stery in a few word*, w hen Fie mrs. t/iat 
trtrsr ref? o* /be c% 0/ *r£/> *ur/.c tt. bz the 

J/j&rmdxezi&x ' f tkezex trw m r** \* frtsarwe the inriolatntiiy of evmtraeU” 

We are w jcg Ujzx oerr eweeat? should represent tlee riews r s 
pecrjLfer 10 tbe demcxracy: aad }et who is there, that a w iiirt^ to U 
known a* retkgrg fes a-serrt to teem ? 

It is wha sajdse that in a cocameot pcbfkbed frhn die signatures of 
■ae£- bslt of whots, it is tre. are ice»o to diner trocn tre dfctnbe 
Eikc^iied in ft- we boo it asserted that Goremor Morton ~ rtss/mrr.enrf* 
a mntrmimeA >J*rt$ to all to its-oe their notes as carrenej” Far from 
fdarMhtin g ue ^cm of adventure,. b« Terr word* are. « A ,rt T ex 

or ^tnttcnos ^ nmrmmemdUT He entreats the jejri*Sa»ure to 

as?*£t ~ la eree^uxg crt<_ger teriveri ixo^nd.rg erik 1 ; 





5 


In political warfare our opponents have taught us to expect misrepre¬ 
sentation ; but it is even yet extraordinary to meet misrepresentations so 
gross as to attribute to a chief magistrate a recommendation directly in 
opposition to his open and express language. * 

But a great question has been raised by our opponents, and addressed 
especially to the manufacturers and laborers. 

We acknowledge the appeal: we assert that our measures are best for 
every class of the people without exception — for merchant, farmer, 
laborer, and manufacturer; and as our opponents have appealed especially 
to the manufacturer and the laborer, we gladly join issue before them ; 
and ask, What is at this time required by the interests of the manufac¬ 
turer ? What will most certainly conduce to elevate the condition of the 
laborer ? 

On the one side, the manufacturer is desired to hazard his industry 
and his fortune on the success of the whig party, under the delusive 
hope that they will succeed in reenacting a high tariff; on the other side, 
the democracy resist those measures of the whigs which have hitherto 
brought ruin on the- manufacturers, and propose the sure protection of a 
revenue impost, to be collected in cash. 

And, first, it is to be observed, that the whigs never advocate the high 
..tariff system alone. It has been and will ever be connected with the 
support of a national bank ; and that bank will by its very nature have 
foreign stockholders, and be subordinate to foreign interests, making the 
centre of American finance in London, and the whole capital of the 
country dependent on English capital. 

In the next place, the whigs have never sustained, and will never 
sustain, the high tariff system, except by adding to it a premature en¬ 
couragement of internal improvements, to be conducted by means of 
foreign loans. How fatal these are to the manufacturer, experience has 
shown : the money is apparently borrowed in England : but it comes to 
us from England in the form of English manufactures, and the money is 
really obtained at home. In the short space of three years the indebt¬ 
edness of the States increased in the enormous amount of one hundred 
and eisht millions. Here is room for reflection. This immense debt 
was incurred, not for bullion, not for gold and silver, but for English 
manufactures, which were paid for and consumed by our own citizens. 
Here is the secret of the recent distress in our cities, and the diminished 
success of our domestic industry. 

But the whig party has ever connected the system of a high tariff with 
expansions of the paper system. It offers a high tariff, and at once makes 
it nugatory by the vices of our currency. The first effect of a high tariff 
is a rise of prices ; and the rise of prices, of which the speculators soon 
monopolize the benefits, always, from the action of a general law, expands 
the currency, where the currency is composed of paper. The consequence 
is obvious. The foreigners, having credits at the custom-house , and paying 
in bonds and promises , and not in specie , can still compete with the domestic 
manufacturer for the American market. The public documents prove 
that the tariff of 1828 did not check importations. They fluctuated a 
little, only to advance with greater rapidity than ever. 

The manufacturer knows, then, from the records of commerce, and 
from experience, that the high tariff, in its connection with the measures 
of the whig policy, has not procured to him the expected benefit of the 




6 


exclusive possession of the domestic market. The immense burdens 
imposed by it on the people merit also an earnest consideration. Had 
the high tariff of 1828 continued till now, we have ascertained, that the 
annual additional taxation upon our community, through duties collected 
in Boston alone, would have been, for the last six years, an average 
amount of three millions annually. In the last six years the amount 
would have been about eighteen millions of dollars, paid in Boston alone. 
Excessive as the amount seems, yet it is the result of a careful compu¬ 
tation. ; 

Now, who will not ask the attention of merchants to this fact ? They 
may judge for themselves, whether, at the single port of Boston, they 
could wish to have paid, for the last six years, three millions of duties 
annually more than they have done. 

We will not, in this connection, ask the laborer to give heed to this 
subject; for he already knows that by the vote and strenuous efforts of 
John Davis, he is taxed in this indirect manner for every article of his 
comfort; for coal and sugar; for the necessaries of life; and taxed, not in 
proportion to his property, but to consumption, thus oppressing the poor 
with burdens equal to those which are levied on the rich. 

But we invoke the attention of the manufacturer. The high tariff 
failed, and, if connected with other whig measures, will always fail, to 
give him protection or relief. Will he not, then, listen to the probable 
influence of the democratic policy ? 

For the protection of the manufacturer, democracy offers the Independ¬ 
ent Treasury. 

Hitherto importations have been fostered by the credit of the United 
States, obtained at the custom-house. These it is the plan of the Inde¬ 
pendent Treasury to abolish, and to require duties to be paid in cash. 

Hitherto importations have been quickened by loans, obtained from 
banks, of the revenues already collected. The Independent Treasury 
collects no more revenue than is needed, but keeps that money in the 
treasury, as the constitution requires, to meet the appropriations made by 
the representatives of the people. 

Hitherto the foreigner lias flooded the country with goods, secured the 
duty, and sold them at auction in season to sustain his credit. It is now 
proposed that the foreigner, as he brings to our shore his bales of Euro¬ 
pean manufactures, shall also pay, and in advance, the gold and silver for 
the customs to the country. 

Thus the American manufacturer gains a steady check on excessive 
importations ; for no man will readily make extravagant purchases abroad, 
if he is to be met by actual cash duties at home. 

The Independent Treasury will, further, have an indirect tendency to 
prevent fluctuations in the currency. Here, also, is a vital benefit to the 
manufacturer. He needs not an expanding and contracting currency, 
but a currency which is always true to the constitutional standard of value. 
Just as he would build his mill by the side of a steady water-power, and 
not by the side of a stream, which in spring rages like a torrent, and in 
July is summer-dried, —just so he needs a steady, uniform possession and 
exercise of credit. This the Independent Treasury will assist to secure; 
for the government will maintain, in its full integrity, the standard of value, 
and, by collecting the revenue in gold and silver, will check excessive 
importations, sustain mercantile credit in its moderated activity, and re- 


7 


press that periodical inflation of the currency which stimulates specula¬ 
tion, to the ruin of the regular industry of the country. 

Thus the Independent Treasury is fraught with unmixed benefits to the 
manufacturer. It injures him in nothing; it benefits him in every way : 
it operates directly as a protection ; indirectly, it checks extravagant im¬ 
portations, and it tends to give stability to the currency, without which 
manufacturers can have no abiding prosperity. 

To the laborer the Independent Treasury brings a benefit, exactly in 
the degree in which it contributes to give stability to the currency. In 
this way, he derives many advantages: — 

1. If the stream of credit flows tranquilly and steadily, employment is 
steady ; and regular employment is essential to the happiness and social 
advancement of the laborer. 

2. A steady currency enlarges the market for our industry, as well as 
renders that market more secure ; and hence, by increasing the demand 
for labor, increases its rewards. 

3. Stability of currency will check the speculators in their attempts, 
by discounts at banks, to forestall the market, and will leave all the ne¬ 
cessaries of life to be obtained at regular and fair prices. 

4. The laborer, with a stable currency, will be safe against being de¬ 
frauded by means of notes of doubtful credit. 

5. And, lastly, the laborer, with a stable currency, would, in the ag¬ 
gregate, get effectively higher wages. Now, when the currency ex¬ 
pands, labor is the last to rise ; when it contracts, it is the first to fall. 
Last December, the currency was actually contracted, probably more than 
it could have been under an entire specie currency. Had the currency 
been entirely of gold and silver, wages could never become reduced so 
low as they are in periods of contraction. 

It is, therefore, by the truest instinct, that the laborers have always de¬ 
manded a stable currency ; and, in the present issue, we claim from them 
a unanimous suffrage for the policy which Mr. Van Buren has proposed 
and Governor Morton recommended. 

The Independent Treasury will not itself effect for the laborer all that 
social reform, which the aristocracy of the land will one day find to be 
something more than the dream of enthusiasm ; but its tendencies are in 
the right direction. 

But, in the first instance, we ask the attention of the laborer to a plain 
fact. Our opponents, in their answer to Governor Morton, speak of the 
Independent Treasury in the following terms : —“ That the system will 
operate to reduce the rate of wages of the laboring classes, has been loudly 
insisted upon, by your excellency'’s friends at Washington, as one of its 
signal advantages .” Now, the friends at Washington, to whom the whigs 
refer, must be Calhoun, Walker, and Buchanan, for it is they who have 
especially discussed this question in reference to labor. 

But the light of philanthropy beams through the compact logic of Cal¬ 
houn. “ I am in favor of high wages,” — such are his words ; and he 
adds, “ The higher the wages , the stronger the evidence of prosperity ” — 
In his powerful and unsparing exposition of the evils of a paper currency, 
Walker, of Mississippi, asserts and demonstrates, “ That the real value of 
the wages of labor ivould be enhanced ” by a reform. And Buchanan, in 
January last, declared the protection of the laboring man to be the para¬ 
mount duty of the statesman, and advocates the Independent Treasury, 




8 

because u it will benefit the laboring man , probably , move than any other 
class of society .” 

Thus we prove our opponents to begin by a false assertion, attributing 
to the democratic senators at Washington opinions and purposes directly 
opposite to those which they avowed and defended. 

Again: Our opponents have long charged us with advocating exclu¬ 
sively the rights of the poor. They have pretended that we were ene¬ 
mies to the security of capital; that we took sides too strongly with la¬ 
bor against capital — so that we were said to be setting the poor against 
the rich. And now the democracy is charged with advocating “ a bill of 
privileges to the rich” We ask the intelligent New England laborer to 
consider what must be the purpose of our opponents in making state¬ 
ments so opposite. The democracy cannot merit at once contradictory 
accusations. 

If, from the personal calumnies of our opponents, we turn to their ar¬ 
guments, we find that the laborer has equally little cause to trust in them. 
In defending the expansions of our currency, Mr. Clay assumes that the 
most prosperous state of things is that where prices are rising. Now, for 
the whole community, it is plain that prices cannot keep rising forever. 
To found public policy, therefore, on a system which has a constant rise 
of prices for its object, is an absurdity ; a building erected on such a 
foundation must fall to the ground. Yet the defender of our present 
unmixed paper currency falls, of necessity, into this absurdity. But the 
laborer has a stronger objection to this theory. He demands steady 
prices, not rising prices ; because, when prices are rising, the wages of 
labor-are the last to rise ; and, therefore, at every period in the progress 
of the expanding currency towards the paradise of speculators, the la¬ 
borer relatively suffers, and finds his condition constantly growing worse 
and worse. Every thing rises in price more rapidly than his labor. This 
is well understood in the cities : the reason is plain, and experience has 
confirmed it. In the period of the highest expansion of the currency, 
there was general suffering among the laboring classes. Their wages rose 
a little, but prices rose exorbitantly. Did the laborer wish to purchase a 
barrel of flour ? The market had been forestalled by the favored possess¬ 
ors of bank credit, and the price of flour was doubled, to enrich, not the 
farmer, but the few who had engrossed the trade in wheat. Did the la¬ 
borer wish to purchase a house-lot ? Speculators had seized on every 
spot that could be built upon within two centuries. Did the laborer wish 
to hire a shelter for his family ? Speculators had caused real estate to 
rise, and he was compelled to content himself, in the cities, with narrower 
apartments. Did the laborer resolve to free himself from this thraldom 
by seeking a home in the west? There the speculators, by bank credits 
alone, had obtained titles to millions on millions of acres of the public do¬ 
main, and were extorting from the hard earnings of the industrious emi¬ 
grant a profit of, at least, two hundred per cent. Ought the laborer to 
love rising prices, and an expanding, unmixed paper currency ? 

The great enemy ,of the laborer is tiie aristocratic influence. In 
Europe that influence reigns paramount, and the oppression of the labor¬ 
ing classes has become so inhuman, as to rouse the indignation of every 
lover of his race. Look to Germany, and to Italy, and see the humble 
pittances allotted to the laborer in lands where the democratic principle 
is as yet unknown. Look to France, where the political maxims, adopted 


9 


by Louis Philippe, correspond almost exactly with the maxims of our 
American whigs, and see the laborer in some districts able only now and 
then to get even salt provisions, and in others subsisting chiefly on vegeta¬ 
bles. Look to England, aristocratic England ; the home of the credit sys¬ 
tem and of associated wealth; and there, in a nation where the govern¬ 
ment is administered by factions of the aristocracy, behold the horrors that 
occur in every manufacturing village — children perishing from excessive 
fatigue; men crippled and distorted by want of sleep, want of food, and 
want of repose ; and every fifteenth person in the land driven for a refuge 
to the poor-house. 

Would you produce such a state of things here? Then yield to the 
aristocratic influence, which with us shelters itself in the banks. Make 
the power of the banks stronger than the power of the people ; surrender 
the whole control of the productive industry and of the commerce of the 
country to the dominion of a paper currency, and you multiply obstacles 
in the way of that “ elevation of the laboring portion of the community,” 
which is summoning to its defence the eloquence of our wisest men. 

The measures advocated by our opponents, the fluctuations incident to 
our present system of an unmixed paper currency, the supremacy of banks 
over legislatures, in a word, the aristocratic influence, — these are the 
elements in our present civilization, which “ contain strong tendencies to 
the intellectual and moral depression of a large portion of the communi¬ 
ty ; and this influence ought to be thought of, studied, watched, with¬ 
stood with a stern, solemn purpose of withholding no sacrifice by which 
it may be counteracted.” 

We rejoice that the whigs have appealed to the laborers. They are 
the tribunal, before which, above all other tribunals on earth, we our¬ 
selves are most willing to plead. 

To defend the rights of labor, is the glory of the age. The democracy 
demands, as the test of its measures, their tendency to elevate the labor¬ 
ing classes. If our opponents are heartily disposed to aid us in this de¬ 
sign, let them abandon their opposition, and join with us in establishing 
the reform which will promote it. Then, indeed, we shall believe, that 
the cause of social progress will rapidly advance. But we put little trust 
in the professions of a party, which one day charges us with setting the 
poor against the rich, and the next day with favoring the rich exclusively. 
We set little value on the promises of a party, which stigmatizes those 
whom the assessors neglect, as inmates “of the lowest receptacles of 
vice.” The whigs have appealed to the laborer — let the laborer sit in 
judgment. Whiggism says, the laborer has no natural right to suffrage : 
Democracy asserts it as his right, because he is endowed by the Universal 
Father with reason and affections. Whiggism bids him rely on banks, 
and put his hopes on an unstable currency: Democracy bids him, under 
the blessing of God, rely on himself and on our free institutions. Whig¬ 
gism tells him our country is better than the despotisms of Europe, only 
because in them there is no paper currency : Democracy bids him love his 
country, because here the plough is in the hands of its owner, and the 
democratic principle is ever securing to him political franchises and equal 
rights. The difference between the laborer in Europe and here, is simply 
this_that, in Europe, the democratic principle is but beginning to be es¬ 

tablished ; and here, where mind is free, it exists in povver. The demo¬ 
cratic principle is the heavenly messenger, that has whispered words of 


10 


consolation and gladness to the laborer ; that has conferred on him politi¬ 
cal power ; that has summoned the wise and the good to labor for his ele¬ 
vation. Years ago the democracy of Massachusetts published its faith on 
this point; and from that faith it will never swerve. We repeat it: To 

ASSERT THE RIGHTS OF LABOR, IS THE MISSION OF THE AGE. 

It is in this connection, that we would call your attention to the doc¬ 
trine of our opponents, on the subject of suffrage. As if self-government 
were the exclusive prerogative of barbarians, they assert, that the natural 
right of man to be governed by himself, is abandoned on entering into 
civilized society. This is the old whig theory of compact; a theory which 
we have charged upon them always; which lies at the bottom of all their 
reasonings, and all their legislation, but which they have never till now 
openly and explicitly avowed. This thorough whig doctrine is broad 
enough to cover ev£n a constitutional monarchy, or any form of govern¬ 
ment founded in contract ; it opposes insuperable obstacles to progress 
in freedom, and substitutes privilege for equality. Concede this whig- 
tenet, and popular pow T er is at an end. We have a government of the 
aristocracy by compact, and no longer a government by the people. 

But, say our opponents, the right of suffrage and the right of self-gov¬ 
ernment are not synonymous. Now, in a representative government, how 
is the right of self-government to be exercised, except by suffrage? The 
great majority never hold office, and never exercise their right in any 
other way. For all practical purposes, they are synonymous. To give 
up the natural right of suffrage, is to give up all natural right to political 
power. 

But the truth is, our opponents wish to disfranchise poverty. Let them 
try to disguise it; but the truth bursts forth. “For the poor who are idle 
and vicious,” say they to Governor Morton, “we cannot join in your ex¬ 
cellency’s sympathy.” And they declare that the idle and vicious poor 
ought not to be permitted to vote. Now, let us see what these whigs 
really mean. To the “ idle and vicious poor ” there are three things — 
idleness, vice, and poverty. But not a word is said about disfranchising 
the idle rich, or the vicious rich : it is only the idle poor and the vi¬ 
cious poor. Therefore the whigs really wish to disfranchise not vice and 
idleness, but poverty. Without arguing the abstract question, whether 
idleness and vice ought or ought not to be disfranchised, we will say this — 
that when democracy disfranchises vice, it will doit without respect of per¬ 
sons, whether rich or poor. 

On the subject of railroads, the democracy of Massachusetts would 
say, that, although many of the democratic party were in favor of the con¬ 
struction of railroads by private enterprise, in the manner in which other 
public improvements had been made, yet when large loans of the credit 
of the state to the Western railroad were solicited, the democracy opposed 
the grant. “ These grants of credit,” say our opponents to the governor, 
“ were all sustained by a large majority of your excellency’s party.” To 
imbody such an assertion in a document pretending to authority, argues a 
degree of effrontery, of which w T e had believed no party to be capable. 
The records of the general court authorize us to give to the writer of this 
statement a peremptory contradiction. So long as the records of the 
general court shall be preserved, so long the perfect evidence will exist, 
that the democratic representatives , with a remarkable degree of unanimity , 
voted against lending the credit of the state to the Western railroad. We 


11 


leave the author of the false statement to the shame and mortification con¬ 
sequent on exposure, and those who incautiously signed the answer, to 
their own reflections upon the misrepresentation to which they have been 
made to give currency. 

We succeeded in causing an investigation to be made into the salaries 
of the officers of the Western railroad; and such were the results of the 
investigation, that, aided by the votes of a few, whose actions are more 
patriotic than the maxims to which they have set their names, the two 
state directors, who had favored the extravagant increase of salaries, were 
displaced; and an express law was enacted, to exclude from the board 
two individuals, whose salaries had been unwarrantably increased. The 
extravagance may prove an ultimate charge upon the commonwealth. 

On the subject of retrenchment, we have labored arduously, but for the 
most part in vain. The finances of the state merit your closest scrutiny. 
Retrenchment and economy are sufficient to save us from the difficulties 
in which the extravagance of our predecessors has involved us. We 
have, in our attempts at retrenchment, been overborne by the efforts of 
the whig majority in both branches. We have labored indefatigably; 
but the party discipline of our opponents has made our labor in vain. 

We attempted to guard the right of suffrage, by asserting the secrecy 
of the ballot; but the bill which succeeded in the house, was, on the last 
day of the session, defeated by a strict party vote in the senate. 

We endeavored to obtain the repeal of the odious and unconstitutional 
sunset law. This repeal passed the house; but being in the senate 
referred to a committee, that committee usurped the power of negativing 
the action of the house, and under pretence of reporting the bill in a new 
draft, actually threw the bill from the house aside, and brought forward a 
new one, better suited to their own maxims. Thus a whig committee, 
appointed by a whig president of the senate, baffled all our efforts, and 
baffled them in a secret, insidious, and, as many think, disorderly man¬ 
ner, inconsistent with the rights of the legislature. 

We attempted, in conformity to the governor’s recommendation, to 
listen to the voice of mercy, by diminishing the number of capital crimes. 
This attempt, also, was defeated. 

The greatest abuses in our banking system have been by inordinate 
loans to directors. A most wholesome law, requiring banks to make re¬ 
turn of the amount of loans to their directors, was, after passing the house, 
defeated in the senate by a strict party vote. 

Taxation falls most heavily on the middling classes. Rich men invest 
in stocks, which escape the eye of the assessors. The valuation of 1830 
gave, as the whole amount of property in this commonwealth, the aggre¬ 
gate of about two hundred millions. The chartered corporations of this 
state are authorized to hold property and issue stocks to an amount 
exceeding two hundred and thirty millions. The democracy in the legis¬ 
lature succeeded in introducing a law, compelling banks and other corpo¬ 
rations to communicate to the assessors their list of stockholders. This 
bill passed the house. It is manifestly just. The farmer’s land lies open 
to view. The goods in the trader’s shop cannot escape the search of the 
assessor. We ask the farmer, and the country trader, to trace the fate of 
that bill. It went to the senate; and the whig majority of that body 
published to the people of Massachusetts the true character of the whig 
party, by rejecting the bill. 


12 


Thus were we restrained by the party discipline of the whig majority 
jn the senate. In vain did we attempt to extend further relief to poor 
debtors, to wipe the last vestige of imprisonment for debt from the statute 
book, to protect the laborer in the enjoyment of his earnings. The inex¬ 
orable senate was fixed in its adhesion to the maxims of aristocracy, 
depriving our efforts of success, and leaving us no appeal but to the people. 

In conclusion, we.cannot but congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the 
prospects that are opening before the country. In the political contest of 
the ensuing season, throughout the Union, the aristocratic influence is 
destined to receive a more entire overthrow, than ever yet attended a 
contested election. The corrupt management of the United States Bank 
has indeed involved the country in suffering. That mammoth institution 
entered the market as a money-borrower, and paid the most exorbitant, 
usurious interest, for the sake of monopolizing all the money that was to 
be loaned in the country. Having thus exhausted the money market, it 
next, in order to meet its European engagements in specie, suspended 
specie payments at home, and thus introduced confusion into the ex¬ 
changes, deranged the currency, and involved the South, and South 
West, and the West, in all the evils that attend on irredeemable paper. 
But the people have awaked to the true cause of the distress. “ The 
sober second thought ” traces the disasters of the season to the misman¬ 
agement of the banks, and especially to the United States Bank of Penn¬ 
sylvania; and the South, and the Great West, justly indignant at a party 
which, in its greediness for power, would turn the screws of oppression 
even on the laborer, and embarrass the business of the whole nation, 
discern no permanent relief, but in a firm adhesion to the democratic prin¬ 
ciple. From all sides, we receive the abundant pledges of success. 

In opening the campaign, the whigs confessed a defeat in advance ; 
for they did not dare to rally round any one of their strong men. They 
made a confession, also, of their own want of respect for the intelligence 
and discernment of the people. “ You need an instrument ,” were the 
words of Mr. Sprague to the whigs of Boston, when he met them to make 
his apology for assisting in nominating Harrison. For their “ instrument,” 
therefore, the whigs have selected a man, long ago condemned in the 
senate by a voice from Massachusetts, as unworthy of even a vote of 
thanks, when thanks were voted to a crowd; and having dressed him up 
in the cast-off clothes of General Jackson, they expect the people to 
huzza for a hero. But the attempt at fraud is harmless, and will be most 
signally rebuked. The people is the sole dispenser of honor, as well as 
of power. They do not learn of the pedant who are great men ; 
they prove themselves to be the rightful guardians of an honest fame, and 
the sole distributors of glory. They will award to Harrison his due. 

And whom do we see rallying to his support ? In our own common¬ 
wealth, the forward friends of Harrison are not those of the yeomanry, or 
of the manufacturers, who hitherto, but against their true interests, have 
acted with the whigs; it is rather the new set of reckless politicians, that 
have assumed the control of the federal party — men who now scoff at 
poverty, and now descend into the arena with professions more demo¬ 
cratic than democracy itself; excelling in no arts but misrepresentation 
and railing, and branded as treacherous and dishonest by one to whose 
genius they are compelled to do homage. In Pennsylvania, a party re¬ 
solved to treat a popular election as though it had not happened • and 


13 


these Ritner rebellionists, foiled in their attempt at a revolution, are the 
supporters of Harrison. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, hundreds of 
illegal votes for the whig candidate were put at once into the ballot-box, 
in advance of the election; and the perpetrators of this atrocious fraud 
are the friends of Harrison. In New Jersey, the whig governor, under 
his broad seal, issued a false certificate of election. In the house of rep¬ 
resentatives of the nation, where parties were so balanced that a whig 
was chosen speaker, and where a committee of elections was appointed 
by a whig speaker, that committee declare that the democratic candidates 
had the majority of legal votes; and the whig governor who gave the 
false certificate, and the members who tried to steal into Congress under 
it, — these all are friends of Harrison. 

We appeal, then, to calm, reflecting men; we appeal to those who, 
heretofore, have taken little interest in politics. Let them observe how 
vice in public life has assumed a gigantic form, and stalks abroad openly, 
defying the light. Let them weigh well the dangers to which our insti¬ 
tutions are exposed, from politicians who never can gain power from the 
sober preference of the people. Then, by their love of country and of 
man, by their regard for sound morality and free institutions, by their 
love of liberty and of order, — let them join us in our efforts “for the 
better establishment and the more perfect development of the democratic 
principle,” by the reelection of Van Buren and Morton. 


RESOLUTIONS. 


1. Resolved, That the democratic members of the legislature, constituting nearly one 
half of that body, respond, with their whole hearts, to the sound doctrines, the enlarged 
views, the enlightened and liberal policy, the sagacious and prudent suggestions, the 
elevated moral sentiment, the manly and modest expression of opinion, the unequivocal 
plainness of language, the honest sincerity and purity of purpose, the generous patriot¬ 
ism, and the deep devotion to popular rights, which distinguish, above all Executive 
Messages that have preceded it in this Commonwealth, the “ Address of Marcus 
Morton to the two Branches of the Legislature on the Organization of the Government 
for the present Political Year.” 

2. Resolved, That the failure to carry into effect, at the recent session, the principal 

measures of judicious reform recommended in that Address, in accordance with the 
manifest wishes and wants of the people, belongs to the party opposed to the Execu¬ 
tive, who held a majority in the Legislature, and whose obvious policy has been that of 
the same party in National legislation, as avowed by their chosen Expounder, viz. 
« rather a struggle for prevention than for the attainment of any positive benefit ” to the 
people! , 

3. Resolved, That the majority of the people, the many, and not the few, have been 
truly represented by the Governor, in his Address ; — and monopoly and minority, the 
few against the many, by those who have held the numerical control of the Legislature, 
and by that means prevented the prudent retrenchment and the wise reforms recom¬ 
mended by the Chief Magistrate. 

4. Resolved, That the direction of all the Standing, and nearly all the Select Commit¬ 
tees, of both branches, having been in their hands, through the appointment of their 
presiding officers, they have moulded the public business (with some honorable excep¬ 
tions, where truth has proved stronger than party) to suit their pleasure; and thus have 
designedly put it out of the power of the democratic members to carry forward that vig¬ 
orous and efficient system of economy and reform, which is so emphatically demanded 
by the people of their public agents. 

5. Resolved, That we confidently appeal to the ivhole people to decide between the 
minority and the majority of the Legislature, upon the system of public measures and 




14 


> 




political principles they desire to have advanced in this Commonwealth. We call upon 
them to look at the condition of the public debt and the public expenditures, and in 
their sound judgment to decide, whether “ a reform in the administration of our State 
finances is not indispensable to our prosperity and respectability; a duty to our constitu¬ 
ents, and justice to posterity ” — a reform which was carefully proposed and perseveringly 
urged by the democratic members, but defeated at the threshold by a strict party vote! 

6. Resolved, That we have seen with regret, and have strenuously labored to prevent, 
the course pursued by the numerical majority of both branches, in evading, delaying or 
postponing, and when that failed, voting down, whenever they could carry a party vote, 
the prudent and sagacious measures of reform, so impressively and clearly recommended 
by the Governor. 

7. Resolved, That it is a humiliating spectacle to all who value a decent respect from 
those who compose one branch of the Government to another, to witness the extent to 
which disappointed party spirit has been carried in the undignified and extraordinary 
measure adopted by the whig members of the Legislature, in covertly concocting a docu¬ 
ment, which they dare not subject to the ordeal of open discussion, in either House — 
purporting to be an Jlnswer to the Governor’s Address; but which is as deficient in 
decency and argument as it is in sound principles and sober truth. 

8. Resolved, That the power of party discipline over honest convictions, is remarkably 
developed by the signatures to that document, many of which belong to those, who, 
during the session, have repeatedly opposed by their votes the doctrines and measures 
which that Reply enforces as the reason for their opposition to the Governor and the 
Democracy of the Commonwealth — and we call upon them to reconcile or disclaim 
these discrepancies between faith and works, in the account Ave are all required to give 
to our constituents. 

9. Resolved, That in the Governor’s Address, Avhich so admirably illustrates the demo¬ 
cratic principle, Ave recognize the fundamental doctrines of sound legislation, namely,— 

]. “ A paramount regard to the collective Avill that includes all the intelligence of the 
community — the Avill of the people.” 

2. A distinct and practical avowal of 11 the democratic principle ” as the basis of equal 
and just legislation — “a principle Avhich gives the highest security to property, by 
giving security also to labor in the enjoyment of the fruits of its own industry.” 

3. A just appreciation of our free institutions, and a rightful attributing of the evils 
the people suffer in pecuniary concerns, “ to the unjust and unequal action of our sys¬ 
tems of currency; and to that wild and reckless spirit of associated speculation and 
individual extravagance it has engendered, Avhich discourages honest industry and im¬ 
poverishes many while it enriches very few.” 

4. A solemn recognition of the obligation of contracts, and of the high duty of the 
Legislature to enforce these obligations in their relation to corporations and banks, as 
well as to individuals. 

5. A disavoAval of the system of special legislation for the feAv at the expense of the 
many, which has so largely contributed to SAvell the State expenditures by appropriating 
so much of the hitherto prolonged sessions of the Legislature to privileged and exclu¬ 
sive interests, and so little to general laws for the public good. 

6. A Avholesome check to the recent alarming substitution of State speculation in 
stocks, for private credit investments in large and doubtful enterprises, which threaten 
to involve the people in debts that Avill mortgage their farms and pledge their earnings 
to abide the issue of these experiments. 

7. A recommendation Avhich comes home to every man, that “ retrenchment should 
be a substitution for taxation,” to meet our unnecessarily large expenditures ; 
and a practical enforcement of this recommendation, by pointing out the means of dis¬ 
pensing with useless offices, reducing salaries to the standard of the general means of 
living among the people, diminishing the business, the delays, and the costs of the 
Courts, abolishing useless commissions and fanciful surveys, and putting an end to the 
ruinous policy of the State, annually incurring increased debts to meet its increased 
current expenses. 

8. An earnest devotion to the interests of morals and education through free and un¬ 
trammelled Common Schools, as “ the fountains whence should floAv the knoAA r ledge to 
enlighten and the virtue to preserve our free institutions.” 

9. A full recognition of the right of self-government, and its indispensable concomi¬ 
tant, independent suffrage, which, through the secret ballot alone, that shall protect the 
employed from the arrogant censorship of the employer, can “ secure to every rational 
soul a free and honest expression of his unbiased convictions.” 

10. A manly vindication of the rights and the dignity of labor, which, instead of being 
the mere pensioner on credit capital, and receiving, as it is compelled to do under 
existing systems and sentiments, a subsistence only from its earnings, — as if it were a 


f 


o 


15 

favor for the rich man to let the poor man live, — should be elevated in public opinion to 
an equality with the possessors of the wealth it creates, in all the reciprocal relations 
between the employed and the employer. 

10. Resolved , That these are the great doctrines and the great rights of the people, 
which the Address of the Governor sustains, as the foundation of “ the democratic prin¬ 
ciple,” but which the Reply of the whig members of the Legislature heartlessly stig¬ 
matizes as “ the mere stratagems of party, never before heard from the Chair of State.” 

11. Resolved , That the exact opposite of these sound doctrines of Constitutional 
liberty and equality, will be found developed in the sneering and captious document 
purporting to be a formal and deliberate Reply of the whig members of the Legislature 
to the Governor’s Address — and in that Reply the people will find a bold denial of all 
the pretensions of the whig party to the name or the nature of democracy , which they 
have attempted to assume in their recent change of name to “ whig republicans ” and 
“ democratic whigs.” 

12. Resolved , That we now have the true creed of the whigs, attested by their own 
signatures; and the plain question for the people to decide, is between the doctrines of 
the Governor’s Address and the dogmas of the whig Reply, in which we recognize, as 
the only maxims of government and measures of legislation they contend for, the 
following, which the democratic people of these United States have again and again 
repudiated, viz. 

1. A National Bank, as the only financial remedy; 2. a denunciation of a Constitu¬ 
tional currency and a Constitutional Treasury ; 3. a renewed clamor for the public rev¬ 
enues to aid private speculation ; 4. a resistance to any wholesome reform of the abuses 
of the banking system, and the ruinous expansions and contractions of the credit 
system; 5. a revival of the worn-out panic cry that all the evils of excessive banking 
and overtrading are to be traced to the removal of the deposits; 6. an unqualified de¬ 
fence of special legislation and monopoly as the highest duty and the greatest benefits 
of government; 7. a justification of the State debt contracted by the pledges of millions 
of its credit to private Corporations, and an encouragement to the extension of that sys¬ 
tem of making the farmers and working-men of Massachusetts endorsers in Europe for 
private capitalists and speculators; 8. an open opposition to retrenchment and economy 
in State expenditures ; 9. an approval of the existing high salaries of State officers, com¬ 
pared with every other State in New England, and most of the States in the Union; 10. an 
attempt to disparage economy at home by complaining of alleged extravagance abroad ; 
11. a recommendation that the State should retrench, not by diminishing expenditures, 
but by compelling the Counties to bear the costs of criminal prosecutions, and the towns to 
support the State paupers and pay their representatives; 12. a sneering at the protection 
of suffrage, and a gross aspersion upon men without property as “ vagrants and vagabonds ; 
creatures who have just enough of humanity left to be recognized as rational beings”! 13. 
an insult to the poor by representing them as idle and vicious because they cannot pur¬ 
chase the right of suffrage; and a plain inference, from the argument against free 
suffrage, that vice and idleness, when united to poverty, ought to be disfranchised, but 
may safely be allowed to vote; if they can ride to the polls in a costly equipage! —And 
these, as far as can be gathered from the whig Reply, are the fundamentals of the polit¬ 
ical creed they would enforce by special legislation and wasteful expenditures upon 
the many , for the exclusive benefit of the few. 

13. Resolved , That it is cheering to find our ancient Commonwealth once more, 
through her Executive, placed in harmony with the National Government, against which 
those who had controlled her councils have waged a profitless and unfounded war for 
the last fifteen years ; as if factious opposition to the Government of the people’s choice 
were the first duty of good citizens. 

14. Resolved , That we trace this happy change to the increased zeal of the people in 
coming to the polls; stimulated by free discussion, the development of democratic 
truth, and the pure convictions and active exertions of Democratic Young Men, who 
are coming forward in their energies and love of truth, free from the prejudice that had 
so long bound down the old federal party in this Commonwealth to opposition for the 
mere love of opposition; — and we beseech the young men of Massachusetts to rally 
around these glorious principles, and sustain and carry forward to its full consummation 
the great work they have so nobly begun. 

15. Resolved , That we rejoice in the establishment of the right of suffrage and the 

supremacy of the ballot-box over tlx- frauds of des ; nen, who . because they view 

with contempt the equality of the poor man with the wealthiest, iu fits vote, seem to 
look witho'T compunction upon any ev-vice by which they can make the signature of a 
town clerk upon the wrong side of a sheet of paper, or the “ broad seal” of a Governor 
who does not choose to count the people’s votes, of more weight than the voice of the 
people. 








16 


y f A^" r 


16. Resolved, That we congratulate the country, and especially our laboring fellow- 
citizens who suffer most from the fluctuations of an exclusive paper currency, upon the 
prospect of the speedy establishment of the Independent Treasury; and earnestly urge 
upon the friends of that sound measure in Congress, every effort to give it the imme¬ 
diate force of law; — firmly believing, that although it can effect but a portion of the 
reform indispensable in our false credit system, it will tend materially to diminish the 
evils of that system, and will especially be beneficial to the manufacturer in protecting 
him against the ruinous competition inseparable from the expansion of the paper system, 
that is' invariably followed by excessive importations ; and to the working man in se¬ 
curing to honest labor permanent occupation and certain reward. 

17. Resolved, That in view of the great principles of national and individual independ¬ 
ence for which the democracy is now contending against the aristocracy, we rejoice 
in the settled assurance which no artificial electioneering panic, and no forced “ Harri¬ 
son enthusiasm” can disturb ; that the people-, who never desert a public servant honestly 
laboring in their cause, will again triumphantly sustain, as the chief representative of 
the democratic principle, the accomplished, faithful and fearless President of the United 
States, Martin Van Buren, and reelect him by so decisive a majority of the nation, 
as to entirely do away with the necessity of “nicely counting ” the votes ! 

18. Resolved , That we will concur in the recommendation fora National Convention, 
originating from our sister democratic state, New Hampshire, whose noble vindication 
of the cause of Democracy so justly entitles her to take the lead in such a measure ; 
provided the states shall so generally determine to be represented in such Convention 
as to insure a full expression to the wishes of the democracy of the whole Union. 

19. Resolved, That this convention declare their preference for Martin Van Buren 
for President, and James K. Pork, of Tennessee, for Vice-President of the United 
States, to be supported by the democracy, at the next election. 

20. Resolved , That to prepare for the approaching contest, in which every man who 
loves liberty and democracy, must gird on his armor and resolve to devote all his ener¬ 
gies to the cause of popular rights, this Convention recommend to our democratic 
fellow-citizens of Massachusetts to hold a full convention of Delegates of th< people at 
Springfield, on Wednesday, the 16th day of September next, for the purpose of nomi¬ 
nating candidates for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, and for electors of President 
and Vice-President.- 

The following resolution, offered by Joel Fuller , Esq., of Newton, was unanimously 
adopted: — 

Resolved, That the whig Reply to the Governor’s Address shows plainly that Gov¬ 
ernor Morton has hit the nail on the head! 

On motion of Mr. Greenwood, of Middlesex, 

Voted, That the proceedings of this meeting be published in a pamohlet by the Pub¬ 
lishing Committee. 

On motion of Mr. Webster, of StoCkbridge, 

Voted, That the proceedings of this meeting be signed by the President, Vice-Presi¬ 
dents, and Secretaries, and be published in all the democratic newspapers i” the State. 

The Convention was addressed by Messrs. Whitmarsh and Sumner, of the Senate, 
and Messrs. Allen, Church, Russell Gourgas, and Fuller, of the House. 


Nathaniel Wood, 
Bradford L. Wales, 
Samuel C. Allen, Jr., 
Nathaniel Hinckley, 
Henry W. Cushman, ? 
George Hood, $ 


LEONARD M. PARKER, 

A 

> Vice-Presidents. 

) 

Secretaries, 


President. 


I* Kill i x.£> Ar 11.J= 

OFFICE OF THE BOSTON MORNING POST, 






































































































































































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